


Just Act Natural

by Bibliotecaria_D



Series: Backstage [4]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-24
Updated: 2012-01-24
Packaged: 2017-10-30 01:34:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/326303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliotecaria_D/pseuds/Bibliotecaria_D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Starscream has died before.  He got better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Ding Dong

**Title:** Backstage: Just Act Natural  
 **Warning:** Drunken Stunticons, implied violence and mental games   
**Rating:** G  
 **Continuity:** G1   
**Characters:** Thrust, Dirge, Ramjet, Stunticons  
 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.  
 **Motivation (Prompt):** _New Beginning_

[* * * * *]

Drag Strip was in the lead, of course. That was a given. More interesting was the fact that he was walking backwards, humming along with his teammate’s singing as he sipped from a cube of high grade. 

“Ding dong, the witch is dead! Wicked, wicked witch…ding dong!” Wildrider sang, half overcharged and half just crazy-happy as he reeled down the corridor. Breakdown and Dead End followed more slowly; Breakdown’s nervous demeanor was a little more cheerful than normal, and even Dead End sported a tiny smile. It was a good day to be a Stunticon

Three jets down, three to go. 

Motormaster had toasted the Air Commander’s demise with an enthusiasm usually reserved for running Autobots off the road and, after laughing uproariously for an hour straight, had passed out in the Stunticons’ common room. The other Stunticons were taking the opportunity to go out looking for other parties to crash. Why not? Motormaster would be hungover in the morning, and they might as well make the best of it while they could. 

The lack of joy in the halls was a little surprising. Skywarp’s mischievous streak had targeted everyone at one point or another. Thundercracker hadn’t been as hated, but he hadn’t exactly been liked. Starscream had been the highest-ranking afthead this side of the galaxy, and he’d been universally hated. Megatron had cursed up a storm over losing half his Elite Seekers in the spacebridge accident, but only until he’d had time to process the full implications. 

Soundwave’s impassive announcement over the base’s comm. system had been underscored by deafening laughter in the background as the tyrant’s mirth got the better of him. Starscream was dead! Prince of the skies and whatever other slag the arrogant glitch had claimed to be, and he’d been taken out by a mechanical malfunction? _HA!_

“Ding dong!” Wildrider cheered, and Drag Strip raised his cube in salute to the strange -- but completely fitting -- Earth song. 

Unfortunately for the remaining high grade in the cube, right then the Coneheads rounded the corner and nearly knocked Drag Strip off his feet. Two wings and a shoulder smacked the Stuncticon in the back and head. Translucent pink energon sloshed into his face as he stumbled into the wall, but he rebounded with ability honed by heavy drinking and battle. “Whoaaaaa, hey! **Watch** it, flyboys!” 

They eyed him with distaste and split to walk around him without sparing a word. Helm sparking -- he’d tied bunches of human fireworks to the spikes -- and arms spread as if to hug them, Wildrider blocked the way as effectively as a wall as he swung into another verse of the song. The three jets came to an immediate halt. Who knew if Stunticon stigma spread via touch, after all? 

“Move,” Dirge ordered, voice low and threatening. He raised his arm to point a machine gun at the most visibly insane of the Stunticons and found himself, to his shock, holding a mostly-full cube of high grade. 

Wildrider whirled to grab another for himself from Dead End and spun back around. He apparently felt the need to perform for an unwilling audience, as he proceeded to swig from it and do a bizarre dance for the Coneheads. Both at the same time; what talent. “Wicked witch is dead, is dead!” he sang out, multicolored fireworks spritzing outward in time with the music as his energy levels spiked with sheer happiness. “Ding dooooong!” 

Breakdown edged behind his crazy teammate subtly, peering almost shyly over his shoulder at the openly gaping jets, but Dead End sighed heavily. He adroitly sidestepped around his teammate’s odd shuffling dance in the middle of the corridor. There was experience he obviously wished he didn’t have in that movement. One could only imagine how much practice the Stunticons had in dealing with Wildrider’s antics.

He snatched the cube back from Wildrider and calmly extended it in offer to the closest jet. “It won’t end our suffering, but it certainly helps us endure in this case.” 

It seemed to take some effort, but Ramjet managed to close his mouth. He eyed the proffered cube and shook his head quickly. Dead End sighed again. Fragging jets and their overweening pride wouldn’t let them drink with the ‘ground-pounders,’ no matter the event. So much for hoping things would relax a bit with Starscream and his dumb-aft wingmates dead. He should have known better than to expect any form of improvement. Ever. 

By habit alone, the cube Wildrider had shoved into his hands had made it halfway to Dirge’s lips. The Conehead hadn’t even noticed, he’d been so caught in staring at Wildrider. 

Thrust caught his arm and tore the cube away. “Don’t you **dare**. You wanna end up like them?” Dead End’s visor narrowed, annoyance scraping his apathy like leaves skittering across a gravestone. Behind him, Wildrider’s ecstatic song had dropped back into humming, but Breakdown’s engine thrummed unhappy notes through the metal floor of the hallway. It was always like this; the other Decepticons just…talked about them like the Stunticons weren’t even there. It was infuriating and frustrating and, worst of all, they couldn’t even protest. Combiner team or not, the Stunticons were the youngest and least experienced Decepticons on Earth. 

Thrust gingerly held the cube with just the tips of his fingers and ever-so-carefully placed it on the floor near the wall, then took a precautionary step back. “The Constructicons still won’t say one way or another if we could catch something from them. They’re so unsanitary they’re swimming in Earth bacteria, anyway. I mean, come on. They use the stupid humans’ **car washes** instead of the washracks.” Breakdown’s engine revved, and sparks snapped and glittered around Wildrider’s head. The craziest Stunticon shook his head, determined not to be brought down; intentional ignorance required forcefully breaking into song again, apparently. Dead End openly glared when Thrust merely sneered at Wildrider’s newest round of – deliberate -- antics. 

Dirge glanced at him but seemed to be listening to Thrust’s continued lecture: “Who knows what they’re contaminated with? They’ve probably filled their databanks with stuff from the Internet. Really, it’s just not safe…”

“Aw, don’t be like that, wings! Wildrider’s a nutter, but he’s jusss…just happy ‘cause the Screammander’s outta commission.” Too overcharged to be offended or even really follow the jet’s disdainful words, Drag Strip smiled wide and clapped a companionable hand on Thrust’s shoulder. The Seeker stopped talking about something -- filthy planets and going native? -- and froze into a wide-opticked statue. 

All of the other Decepticons had some kind of Earth loathing, which always came off as extreme to Drag Strip. He liked the humans. Use ‘em and let ‘em die, _he_ said. 

Seemed a shame to be concerned about that kind of thing on a day like today, anyway. Leave that to the Constructicons. They were good at sterilizing stuff. It seemed like Mixmaster was always ordering them to the repair bay for mandatory dousing with chemical disinfectants. The chemist had never liked the Stunticons. And Breakdown’s paranoia had been justified time and time again by Long Haul and Scavenger stalking the team, just waiting for one to split off from the safety of the gestalt group and fall prey to a thorough scrubbing. That always riled Dead End, who then had to go and put on another wax coating. Primus help any of them if they went to the mainland to get the humans to polish them instead, because Long Haul had taken to staking out the entry tower in order to catch them on return. He’d drag whomever he could catch back to the repair bay to be sterilized -- and scrubbed -- again. 

None of the Constructicons seemed happy with their job, come to think of it. Or at least Drag Strip had never seen them anything but disgusted when it came to repairing his team. Always with the _”How revolting--sterilize this immediately.”_ and _”When did you install **leather** upholstery?! It’s dead animal. **Inside you.** That’s sick and wrong!”_ and the occasional _”Oh dear Pri -- kill it! Kill it with fire!”_

And the other Decepticons called the _Stunticons_ weird?

He noticed the cube high grade on the floor and let go of Thrust’s shoulder in order to stoop down and pick it up. A loud thud rattled the wall, audible even above the vibration from Breakdown’s engine. However, Drag Strip’s balance had gone the way of the dodo the moment he bent over; he fell over into the wall at that exact moment and didn’t wonder about the noise. Breakdown was always nervous, anyway, and Wildrider had probably kicked the wall while dancing. 

Or, hey, it looked like Thrust had hit it. Drag Strip blinked mildly at the fist planted in the wall above his head, considering it. After a second, he used it to right himself again. Helpful, that. 

Thrust appeared to be having some kind of paralyzed fit, twitching in place and glaring at his arm -- or Drag Strip’s hand on his arm, he couldn’t tell -- while Ramjet held a hand to his face. The black-faced Conehead was either laughing behind that hand, or possibly praying. He did look like he was gazing up at the ceiling with some form of religious fervor. Dirge looked oddly -- afraid? Huh, strange. Drag Strip had only ever seen Dirge lose his nerve when battle situations got out of control, and he didn’t _see_ any Autobots trying to climb on the jet’s tailfins. 

Just in case he’d missed an Autobot ambush, Drag Strip looked back down the hall. Nope, only fellow Stunticons down that way.

Dead End was staring with the special look of disinterest he reserved for those times they were all going to die of flat-out stupidity. Eh, that was nothing new. Although stupidity usually required -- oh, there he was. Wildrider was giggling behind the Porsche, helm no longer giving off fireworks but optics bright with manic glee. Heeeeeey, maybe Breakdown’s engine was beginning to affect the Coneheads! At least, that might explain their behavior. 

Drag Strip shrugged and sipped his high grade. Not a bad party, all in all. It could use some more excitement, but he didn’t feel like picking a fight right now. Maybe later.

“Must be nice to be in charge,” he said conversationally, most of his attention dwelling on Starscream’s awesome, awesome death. 

Thrust jolted in place, optics snapping up from the Stunticon hand he’d been about to remove with extreme prejudice. “…what?” 

“Y’know. Starscream? Gone?” Wildrider whooped, resuming his dance with an extra helping of exuberance at the reminder. “You may have noticed that he’s, like, not here?” Drag Strip smirked and reached out to clink his cube against Ramjet’s conical helm. The Seeker had let his hand slide down his face so he could stare at the yellow Stunticon with an expression that defied immediate identification. Dirge just looked taken aback, alarm subsiding into startlement at...at what, exactly? “C’mon, you can’t tell me yer not glad he’s bit it! Who got,” Drag Strip’s intakes hitched in a hiccup as his systems fought to deal with all the extra energy he’d been pouring into himself, “gots the promoting? Promotion. Whatever. Who’s Air Commander now?” He wanted to congratulate the jet in person. Let bygones be bygones, all that car-versus-flyer rivalry slag out the metaphorical window with Starscream dead. 

All three Coneheads were staring at him now, faces flat and neutral. When Drag Strip glanced back quizzically, he saw Dead End looking from them to the cube in his hand, obviously wondering if the high grade was playing tricks on him and how soon before said tricks killed him. Breakdown had started edging down the corridor back the way they’re come. Motormaster might have been their own personal worst enemy on the team, but at least his rages and beatings were predictable. The jets were beginning to really freak the already high-strung Porche out. 

Drag Strip just blinked, still smiling and friendly. One hand still comfortably gripped Thrust’s arm. “It’s gonna be so much quieter ‘round here! Easier t’ do,” he looked briefly confused, “…stuff. Yeah. Stuff. Megs can stop watching ‘is back, and you guys don’t hafta put up with that slagger screeching his dumb aft off alla the time. Gonna be great, am I right?” He pulled himself closer to Thrust and nudged him with an elbow. “Amirite, eh? Yeah?” His systems were registering protest with how much high grade he’d been swilling, but he’d never felt better. _Ding dong, the witch is dead!_ “So who’s the newest envoy -- wha-? Naw, wait -- **envy** of ya birdbots?”

They just stared.


	2. Just Act Natural: Dirge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dirge doesn't envy Skywarp.

**Motivation (Prompt):** _Odds of a million to one,_

[* * * * *]

 

“Envy?” Dirge asked, level optics cold as a glacier and voice promising gradual, creeping death from that consuming ice.

Skywarp remained sitting behind what had been Starscream’s desk, unimpressed by the theatrics. Dirge used his ability to induce fear on one and all, but constant exposure to the subsonic noise produced by his engine had given most of the Earth-bound Elite partial immunity. If nothing else, it made it easier to tell the difference between induced and genuine fear. Skywarp knew he had nothing to fear from this jet. Not here, not now. 

“You can’t tell me you’re not envious I was promoted,” he said, tilting his head to study the Conehead standing in the Air Commander’s – in _his_ office.

Dirge looked away, turning to study the sparse office. Starscream hadn’t been enough of a fool to expose anything important to possible theft or vandalism, so there hadn’t been much for Skywarp to move out or redecorate when he’d taken over both position and office. The black-and-purple jet had moved all the furniture around a bit, possibly just because he could. He’d set the desk at a right angle to the door instead of facing it as Starscream had positioned it; the shelving units now sat on either side of the door instead of lining the opposite wall. It appeared that Skywarp had filled them with junk from his quarters. Dirge couldn’t tell what half the stuff was, nor did he care. The placement looked inconvenient and the decorations tacky, but Skywarp’s taste in decorating wasn’t the point.

The point wasn’t what had been changed so much as the statement being made by the changes: _**I** am Air Commander now,_ the room said. _Starscream is exiled from the Decepticon Empire. Air Commander Skywarp now stands by Lord Megatron’s side._

It was a reward for eons of loyalty. Skywarp had, at long last, triumphed over Starscream’s superior flight ability and Thundercracker’s quiet persistence. Success at last: Skywarp had been award the position every flyer in the ranks lusted for. Air Commander Skywarp, head of the Deception air ranks.

Skywarp had asked a completely relevant question about envy, but when Dirge met his optics again, there was nothing but unexpected reserve in the Conehead’s expression. There was none of the sycophantic congratulations showered upon him by Thrust and Ramjet, or even the wry concession offered by Thundercracker. It was oddly unsettling.

“He didn’t execute him,” Dirge said instead, strangely removed from the powerplay. “He could have,” should have, in all honesty, “but he didn’t.”

Skywarp stiffened indignantly as that struck right into the heart of his hidden insecurity. He didn’t have to ask who ‘he’ was, nor who wasn’t dead. Starscream had been _exiled_ , not executed as a traitor should have been, either out of respect for ages in service to the Empire or…or…

”Megatron didn’t need to,” Skywarp said, but his dismissive tone fell flat into uncertainty. Even to himself, he sounded like he was trying to convince someone. “The Combaticons will turn on him soon enough. Exiling him on that asteroid is delayed execution out where the Autobots can’t use it for their propaganda.” A reasonable answer. A logical one that rang hollow as an empty grave, because all it meant was that Starscream _wasn’t in it_. And so long as that grave was empty, there was the niggling question over whose body would ultimately be buried there.

A million to one chance that he’d return, but Starscream had played politics and wartime games for so long only historians remembered the name of the Air Commander before him. He held all the traces taunt, restraining every flyer with ambition in the air ranks like a fisherman reeling in nets full of sharks. Now that controlling hand had been removed by the Supreme Commander of the Decepticons, and the ropes had slipped away. Ambition had been freed. 

Megatron had bestowed a title on Skywarp. It had not, pretensions of loyal service aside, been earned.

By the time that title had come to Starscream, he’d conquered the flight ranks as brutally as Megatron had taken Kaon. Starscream had choked every contrary voice and hung like a stranglehold around their necks. They’d all known he controlled them long before Megatron had finally deigned to acknowledge their prince, their captor, with a proper rank befitting his power over them. He’d gone before Megatron cloaked in invisible chain-links tying him to a network of assassins and informants, a thousand spying optics and ready mouths serving him, and he’d knelt before the warlord needing only that official turn of the key in the lock he’d forged around them. Megatron had granted it because that’s what rank was. Officers just had fancy titles in the Autobots, but power could not be given in the Decepticon ranks. Decepticon officers took their power, and rank was granted based on that power. 

When Starscream had pulled rank, it had tightened the garrote over the air ranks’ throats. What did Skywarp have to pull but a couple of flimsy words before his name?

Already, poison words spread in their ranks. Dirge had heard from Ramjet, who’d heard it from Soundwave -- who was now holding that favor over their heads, and with Starscream’s garrote-string spiderweb gone, what would protect them from the communication officer’s subtle manipulative threads now? -- that Shockwave had put forth his own candidate for the position. Shockwave’s candidate, who didn’t have to stay on Earth playing an idiot half the time; who had a reputation and established network among the Cybertronian air ranks. A flyer backed by all the power of Megatron’s one-opticked loyalist. Only the risk of compromising the massive deception on Earth and the difficulty of sneaking someone through the space bridge had prevented assassination attempts so far. 

But there were far more effective ways to remove obstacles. Assassins were notoriously unreliable, especially when simple warfare provided _so_ many more opportunities for an Air Commander to, ah, fail his duty. 

Thundercracker had already relocated across the base from their old quarters, citing that until a third mech entered the equation, it hardly made sense to pretend they were still a trine. Anyone with half a functioning mind could see the blue Seeker was trying to put distance between himself and the new Air Commander. Megatron would probably take Shockwave’s candidate as the replacement jet for their wing, but Thundercracker had survived a rank-assembled trine before. He’d been placed in Starscream’s wing by Megatron, and he’d accept whoever replaced the screechy Seeker with strict neutrality. Thundercracker had every intention of surviving the succession battle by taking himself out of the power game completely. Let Shockwave’s candidate and _Air Commander_ Skywarp fight it out between themselves while he stood far, far off to the side, ready to hail the winner.

Dirge didn’t have that kind of freedom. His trine had been promoted under Starscream. By Starscream’s will had they kept their positions. If they played the odds right, they might keep their lives. The upcoming internal warfare in the air ranks was going to require choosing a side, and the Coneheads had already held counsel on this subject. 

No way would Shockwave’s candidate choose to keep them directly under his command here on Earth, well within backstabbing range. Not when the better option was to replace them with loyal troops from Cybertron, freshly promoted into the Elite and grateful to the mech who’d promoted them. That meant the Coneheads were going to come to _unfortunate_ ends here on Earth very quickly, or…well, it said something about the situation when even Thrust opted for the less blunt option of demotion. It’d be humiliating, yes, but voluntarily appealing to Megatron -- through Soundwave, who’d smoothly made the offer with only the vaguest hint of what he expected in return for _that_ favor -- for demotion from the Elite might just save their lives. Relocation back to Cybertron meant they’d have a better chance of hiding among the air ranks. 

There was a million to one chance that Starscream would return, but Dirge gave Skywarp’s continued survival even lower odds. He hoped rather morosely that he wasn’t betting blindly on his own life. 

Sp Dirge gazed back at the Air Commander and pondered how very temporary that title was. “No,” he said slowly, “I don’t envy you.”

And whatever he heard beneath the icy fear in the Conehead’s voice made Skywarp look away first.


	3. Just Act Natural: Thrust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrust doesn't envy Thundercracker.

**Motivation (Prompt):** _Running out of time_

 

[* * * * *}

“I don’t envy you,” Thrust said to Thundercracker, and the blue Seeker shot him a murderous glare in return. The Conehead raised his hands defensively but couldn’t wipe the smirk off his face. “Hey, just sayin’. Starscream’s going to pound Skywarp into bitty pieces, and you’re going to be the one stuck picking him up with a magnet.”

Ramjet kicked his wing as Thundercracker’s lips twisted unhappily. “You really think we’re going to get off that easy ourselves?” Ramjet hissed at him when Thrust turned to retaliate. “None of us lifted a finger to help Screamer. You **know** he’s going to remember that!” At Ramjet’s side, Dirge shifted uneasily and glanced around the office as if searching for something. Reassurance, maybe, but that was in low supply. Tacky decorations, on the other wing, were running rampant. Skywarp’s room décor ran toward tasteless.

Not that Thrust needed any -- reassurance _or_ interior design tips. “Give me a break!” he laughed. “Nobody was stupid enough to help him! We all knew Megatron would win, and not even Starscream could expect us to go into exile for him.” Except that their temporarily-deposed Air Commander really could expect that, stuck-up dumbaft that he was. But Thrust wasn’t thinking about that, nope. “He’ll yell at us for a while, probably make an example of Skywarp, and by next week things’ll be back to normal.” He cocked an optic toward Thundercracker, who’d paced halfway across the office to stand at attention in front of the desk. “Like I said: I don’t envy you trying to find where Skywarp’s nose ends up. I’ll check my thrusters before I leave, but -- “

“Shove it out your turbines,” Thundercracker snarled, not budging an iota. Someone could take a picture of him to show new recruits: How To Stand At Attention In Front of An Empty Desk. “If **any** of us walk out of this room, it’s going to be by the direct intervention of Primus.”

There was a beat of startled silence, but then Dirge rumbled, “Swindle’s been taking bets on that.”

They looked at him, surprised all over again. The Combaticons, so far as any of them knew, were still in pieces on Cybertron. “Shockwave hasn’t even finished reprogramming them!” Thrust sputtered. “How in the smelter is Swindle collecting **bets** already?!”

“He really is that good,” Thundercracker muttered, expression caught somewhere between anxiety and admiration. 

“Timed message drop into the comm. network,” Dirge said. “Check the queue.” All communications from Cybertron went through four layers of encoding. It ensured that only the right mechs got the messages, but that kind of data scramble caused a message back-up on the Earth side every time the space bridge opened and allowed the Cybertron network to dump information over the connection to Earth side. If the Decepticons were busy, they pushed aside checking their messages until later. In this case, the jets had been more concerned with Bruticus -- and then Starscream’s triumphant return -- to take the time to check comm. updates. “Apparently Starscream was quite…vocal…about what he thought about us before he took off from the asteroid,” Dirge summed up for them as they accessed Swindle’s all-personnel message. “Swindle set up everything before he even knew for sure Starscream made it.”

Meaning that Swindle had assumed Starscream would make it no matter what. Which wasn’t all that surprising. If anyone could make it through Bruticus, Megatron, Shockwave, _and_ the Autobots, it would be Starscream.

That would be kind of funny and even a source of twisted pride in their fellow Seeker if not for Starscream’s apparent deadly intentions toward them. Those intentions were spelled out in every vicious syllable by Swindle’s best impartial business voice. Dirge’s wings slowly fanned back as the message played, and Ramjet’s locked into place. Thundercracker just stood straighter, stiffening with every sick word. Swindle had obviously not needed to elaborate; Starscream had a turn of phrase all his own that came through _quite_ clearly.

Starscream, who had blazed out of exile and back into Megatron’s favor in the course of an hour. It had given them no time to make their own plans or even process what was happening until they’d been standing back on Earth saluting the restored Air Commander. The order to assemble in his office had come like toothed jaws of a trap closing around their wings, holding them down and tearing away any hope of escape. Disobey and face Megatron’s fusion cannon as traitors. Obey, and…well, really, what could he do? Really.

Thrust reached for bluster, pulling it over what definitely _was not_ fear even as he strode over to join Thundercracker in front of the empty desk. His trine clicked into place at his heels, and they weren’t clustering together like frightening birds. They were in _formation_. This was a formality, not an execution! 

“He needs us too much to kill us,” he assured Ramjet, glancing back to check that the other Conehead was in position, military regulation distance between them and no visible flaws as he snapped to attention. _Looks good._ Dirge was on his other side, stance technically correct but optics dim and sulky, lowered to stare at the floor. _Looks miserable._ “It’s not the first time he’s beaten us down,” he said, voice louder than necessary but still sounding like a bad attempt at comfort. “Hurts like the slagging pit, but repairs fix all. We’ll fly again. Don’t let it get to you!”

Thundercracker threw a sidelong look at him. “And what exactly are you going to do to stop him before it’s too late for repairs?”

“Well, yes, I, um.” All the confidence he projected couldn’t come up with a coherent answer for that. Not thinking about it, _not thinking about it._

Behind him, Thrust could hear the quiet rattle as Dirge gave a convulsive shake. His spark sank. That sound signaled the situation officially dropping out of their control. Dirge could only hold up under pressure when he had control, and Starscream specialized in taking that control away. The Air Commander held their leashes again, and they’d been very, very bad dogs. The kind of disloyal wardogs that turned on their owner. Had turned on him indeed, all their past pledges of fealty just so many broken promises when opposed by Megatron. A smart owner would put such bad hounds down before they turned on him again. After all, who kept wardogs who fought and killed and obeyed another owner? Starscream would never know what side of the battlefield such mutts stood on.

What could the Air Commander’s hounds offer him in return for their lives? He held their leashes, hounds let out of the kennel to fight under his orders, and no one knew better how easily those orders could twist battleplans into death traps for bad dogs. 

_That_ was power. _That_ was control, and Dirge shook because they had none. Thrust wouldn’t show it, but he felt that lack as acutely. Time didn’t trickle away from them; it ran. Frag, it sprinted. The four jets standing rigidly at attention in the Air Commander’s empty office felt it in the liquid coolant racing through their systems. Control stole the strength from the loose joints they shored up, and Thrust clamped his hands to his sides to keep them from trembling. Out of the corner of his optic, he could see panic slowly seeping into Thundercracker’s face.

A moment later, panic hid behind a stoic mask as the door beeped and opened.

Skywarp stood in the opening, resignation written large across him and arms hanging limp at his sides. Blue fingers on his right wing tightened and relaxed, and the black-and-purple ex-Air Commander winced, just slightly. He walked into the room, stiff-limbed puppet with taunt strings, and behind him stood the puppetmaster. Starscream gave the wing in his grip a little push before letting go, and Skywarp hesitated. 

“Take a seat, **commander** ,” the restored Air Commander invited, steel order hard beneath fake joviality, and Skywarp winced again. 

Starscream stood at the entrance to what had been his office only six weeks ago, optics taking in every missing personal knick-knack, every scuff on the floor, every addition and subtraction. The desk Skywarp shuffled toward had been moved, as had the shelving units. The four Seekers who should have had their backs to him were instead standing side-on to the door. It gave him an interesting angle to study them at. They stood at perfect attention, wings and shoulders at precise angles and spacing absolutely spot-on. They stared unwaveringly at the wall above Skywarp’s head as he sank into the sole chair in the office, and none of them dared to look at commander or ex-commander until ordered at ease. 

Skywarp shifted about in the seat, unable to get comfortable. He studiously arranged his hands in his lap, looking down at them. A few seconds later his optics widened, and he jerked his hands up onto the desk, apparently realizing that holding them out of sight could be construed as a threat. He didn’t raise his optics, choosing instead to watch his hands intently. The scrape of his fingers against each other sounded inordinately loud in the silence, but he couldn’t seem to stop fidgeting, arranging and rearranging his hands over and over again. 

_Stop it!_ Thrust urged silently, but even his normal need to speak out had been pushed down by the threat looming on the threshold. It disappeared completely when Starscream left the door and crossed the room in three swift steps. The Air Commander stopped short behind Skywarp with the predatory change from stillness to action and back that characterized raptors. The four Decepticons standing at attention in front of the desk were already motionless; the moment Starscream moved, even air intake halted. Thrust’s fuel pump stuttered, afraid that faint whisper of internal systems could be heard. 

Starscream stood in that unnatural stillness, letting it fray their nerves until the silence broke on the sound of another involuntary shiver from Dirge. He stayed unmoving for one more agonizingly long minute, standing sidelong to them but head turned oddly away so they couldn’t see his expression. Skywarp’s downturned face seemed frozen, dread and defeat battling for supremacy across it. Finally, almost mercifully, Starscream moved. 

His head turned first, sweeping his gaze through the four jets before the desk like an axe through toothpicks. The rage there _burned_ them, but it had been caged and condensed by weeks of thought. It wasn’t a Seeker standing behind Skywarp; it was a container for purest rage, distilled by time. Thrust couldn’t help but recall Swindle’s voice reciting the vindictive list of threats and plans secondhand. If his joints hadn’t been locked into position, he’d have shuddered. 

Starscream’s angry gaze snapped to him anyway, catching some telltale sign and nailing him where he stood. It took actual effort, but Thrust managed to tear his optics away from those burning pits of hate and back to the wall. Behind him, however, there came the soft scrape of movement, the tiniest step taken in retreat, and the Air Commander’s optics narrowed into laserbeams of censure. Thrust almost flinched. _No, Ramjet, you **idiot** …_

“You’re before your commander, soldier,” Starscream said, harsh voice quiet enough to make them strain to hear, and there was a sick fear in that. Starscream was never quiet. “I don’t care how lax things have become in my absence,” Skywarp’s head ducked down further, “I am here now. You **will** stand at attention until ordered otherwise, or you will not stand at all. Do I make myself clear?”

Behind Thrust, Ramjet forced himself back into position. “Yessir.”

Crimson optics glared, sharp and cutting as any knife. “I said, **do I make myself _clear?_**?”

They somehow managed to pull themselves even straighter, optics pinned to an invisible point above his head. “Yessir!” 

He looked down at last, down to where Skywarp’s hands had tensed into claws digging into the desk. He reached over the black-and-purple wing and gently picked up one hand in order to stroke it, caressing the joints with soothing fingers until, at last, the tension seeped away. When the hand lay limp within his own, Starscream placed it flat on the desk with a tender pat and shifted to reach over the other wing for the other hand. He repeated the process while Skywarp stared helplessly at the desktop and the other jets struggled with building terror. Their Air Commander did not touch them like a lover. To see him knead the stress out of Skywarp’s hand so solicitously set off warnings lights in every corner of their minds. 

Survival instincts wailed alarm, shouting at them to get out, _get away_ , but they had to stand there. They had to watch out of the corner of their optics, unable to look away or openly watch unless permitted. They were trapped by regulation and rulebook as effectively as if he’d forced them to the floor with a foot on their backs and a gun to their helms.

Every line of the purple and black Seeker’s body strained for escape, anticipating the blow soon to fall, yet he sat docile under his master’s hand. The touch would turn painful at any moment, and this gentleness only made the wait more sinister. Their commander pet Skywarp with sweet insincerity, _good dog_ , and they all knew it wasn’t true. They’d been bad – bad wardogs, _shame shame_ – and knowing it made this all the worse. It made them that much more aware that the power he wielded over them let him toy with them this way. 

“Shockwave,” Starscream drew out, ostentatiously more interested in Skywarp’s hand than what he was saying, “has tried to replace me.” _Megatron **did** replace me,_ the soft touch said, _with **you**._ Skywarp’s shoulders hunched, optics fixed downward as he braced for the blow. But Starscream couldn’t strike out against the ruler of the Empire. Not so obviously, not when he’d barely earned back his return from exile by Megatron’s good grace. 

So he placed Skywarp’s hand back on the desk, smoothing it flat on the surface and leaning casually on his replacement’s wing to look at the four jets who hadn’t followed him. “Having an officer that powerful outside the Elite divides the flight ranks. This is…unacceptable.” _My air ranks, my followers, betrayed me for another outside the flyers. Megatron is Supreme Commander, but you pledged your lives to **me**. Where were you when Megatron threw me down?_ “He either needs to join the Elite,” blue fingers slid behind Skywarp’s air intake and under his helm, and Skywarp bit back a whimper as they slowly stole forward around his throat, “or somehow be, hmm, neutralized.” Fingertips grazed the vulnerable, tender spot below Skywarp’s chin, and a high-pitched whine came from the powerless Seeker. _Unforgivable,_ whispered the intimate touch, and Skywarp’s desperate optics sought futile contact with Thundercracker, then Thrust’s trine. 

They couldn’t meet his gaze. Their own lives were on the line. The pathetic, silent beggar at the edge of their vision was on his own. Starscream had just laid down his demand in everything he hadn’t said, and it was up to them to make the decision. Either bring Shockwave’s candidate back to Earth, where Starscream would…make room…in his personal trine for a new wingmate, or kill the mech somehow. An assassination of a high-profile officer in the air ranks back on Cybertron, where Shockwave had spent the last 4 million years building his powerbase. Killing a mech Shockwave had spent the last 6 weeks promoting as his candidate for Air Commander wouldn’t have been an easy task if they had a battalion. Four jets, even Elite Decepticon Seekers, didn’t stand a chance.

They didn’t stand a chance, anyway. They’d have to risk life and limb to assassinate this heavily supported, heavily protected mech, hoping frantically all the while not to be caught and executed for treason. And hoping that this trial would be enough to satisfy Starscream. Hoping that he would lighten their personal punishments enough to be bearable.

The easy choice would be to just extend the promise of promotion. No flyer, no matter how controlled by Shockwave, would turn down an invitation to join the Air Commander’s wing. That fulfilled ambition, if not satisfied it, and Skywarp’s trembling hands on the desk spelled out graphic warning against too much ambition. He knew what the easy choice -- the _safe_ choice -- was, too. 

Thundercracker broke ranks enough to risk a shallow bow. “As you command, sir,” he said, deep voice hoarse.

Starscream dipped his chin, smiling benevolently down at the ex-Air Commander quaking under his hand. “Command?” He bent to rest his forearm across the top of Skywarp’s intake, other hand still occupied teasing the other jet’s throat until Skywarp shook with suppressed fear. “I gave no command.” Gloating crimson optics lifted to incinerate whatever illusion of comfort they’d managed to deceive themselves into believing. No official orders. Nothing to help them get through the spacebridge, no excuse to give or assignment to cite to Shockwave or Soundwave. Nothing at all to protect them from Megatron’s wrath if they failed. 

_You’re on your own._

It effective crushed what little hope they’d scraped together. Defeated, even resigned, Skywarp lifted his chin in weak surrender and mewled as the fingers slowly, viciously clenched. The tiny, hopeless sound was clearly audible in the dead silence of the office, and Starscream’s smile was so kind. “You are dismissed,” he said, voice rasping layers of warm silken fury and satin sadist pleasure over cold revenge.

Thrust jolted in place, pent-up panic jerking him like a marionette through a salute. Behind him, his wingmates whirled in perfect time to match steps, marching retreat from the office. Skywarp didn’t move, optics staring straight forward and hands laid flat on the desk. The last sight Thrust had of him was a picture of stark despair.

The Air Commander had let slip his dogs of war, and Thrust knew down to his ailerons that they’d come creeping back, proffering the spoils of battle and groveling like eager pups for the privilege of wearing his leash again. And maybe, just maybe, Starscream would let them serve again. _If_ they could survive that long.

“I’d have preferred a beating,” Thrust said, and for once it wasn’t bluster.


	4. Just Act Natural: Ramjet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ramjet is weak.

_Scenario - in solitary confinement_

[* * * * *]

New enemies generally did not concern Ramjet. He was the elite of the Elite, an undefeatable power in the air who could bring even the strongest fliers crashing down by targeting their weak points. If he happened to get to those weak spots by ramming through an ally or neutral? Oh, well. This was war, and he dismissed those less powerful than himself. Let them get angry! Pathetic little weaklings should have gotten out of his way. 

If they dared tried to start something with him afterward, they’d better be prepared for open warfare. Ramjet didn’t do backstabbing gossip and political machinations. Those were the weapons of weaklings. Confrontations suited his style best of all, since head-on collisions and subtlty didn’t mix. 

Plain and simple, Ramjet believed Starscream’s ambition to be a weakness. Starscream’s strengths lay in powergames, and not physical power. Trying to take over the Decepticons had been a foolish mistake because Megatron was, like Ramjet in the air, undefeatable. For all Starscream’s cleverness by enslaving the Combaticons and twisting the deception of the Autobots around back on Megatron, he remained too weak to challenge for leadership. Having that kind of ambition without a body to back it up was foolishness. Ramjet knew the truth: no matter how smart the mind, physical strength always, always won. Megatron was bigger and stronger, and Starscream lost because _he was weak._ The fact of life in the Decepticons was that strength triumphed over intelligence on the battlefield. 

Off the battlefield, however, Ramjet had to rethink his straightforward philosophy. 

Physical strength hadn’t caused the complicated tangle of powerplays among Soundwave, Shockwave, and Skywarp. Physical threats had been secondary when Ramjet assessed the danger to his trine, because the threat of deactivation would have come only after the politics thoroughly shredded them. The air ranks on and off Cybertron had quickly descended into a shifty arena of verbal promises and rescinded oaths, sworn support and timely withdrawals of the same. If Starscream hadn’t returned from exile -- another exercise in mental manipulation, since the actual fighting hadn’t turned Megatron’s favor -- Ramjet’s entire trine would likely have ended up dead or demoted. Either way, the Decepticon Elite would have had a new set of wings on this dirtball planet.

Dropped into this middle of this unfamiliar territory, Ramjet had floundered. He made enemies far easier than allies, and his few contacts on Cybertron weren’t willing to risk their own tenuous positions for him. Their lives on the battlefield, yes, but physical fights were easy. Taking on the likes of Shockwave meant far more than death threatened the losers. 

By the time Starscream returned, Ramjet had almost been glad to see him. 

Yet he’d been far more afraid of the exiled Air Commander than any fight he’d ever faced. Physical battles he could handle. Pain? He’d endured pain before. But Starscream hadn’t chosen that method of discipline, and _that_ was terrifying. 

Ramjet had stood at attention before Starscream and waited in dread for a beating that didn’t come. Fists and guns, Ramjet trusted implicitly; they had betrayed Starscream, however, and the only power the restored Air Commander trusted to bring the traitors to their knees was what he himself wielded. And -- as Ramjet had noted, and sneered at, and finally realized in dawning horror -- Starscream was physically weak. So Starscream didn’t use his fists. 

He used his _mind_. The weapon that’d failed him in the power struggle against Megatron had been physical force, not mental power. The air ranks that didn’t come at his command had failed him, not his own mind. 

To Ramjet, the math seemed obvious. Five Seekers against one? The one lost. Except that Starscream smiled his cold, calculating smile, the smile that sent Dirge into a nervous breakdown and caused Thrust’s knees to wobble alarmingly, and Ramjet’s equations of brute force stopped adding up. The Air Commander gracefully soared back into his rank as if he’d never left, and he rewrote everything without resorting to a single punch thrown or shot fired. 

Five Decepticons met their exiled commander, and they walked away as only four. Down one Seeker already, and the Air Commander hadn’t even _mentioned_ the issues swirling invisibly between them. The very air in Starscream’s office had shivered with the silent warning of incoming fire. It was a battleground Ramjet had absolutely no experience in, and he felt like he was missing half the battle. And missing information in the midst of war? Even he knew to fear that. 

Thundercracker, calm and collected Thundercracker, ran himself ragged trying to plan an impossible assassination. His engine throbbed as maintenance ran down, rattling almost painfully with stess. Thrust and Dirge didn’t sound much better. Ramjet was beginning to run hot himself, and Starscream hadn’t laid a finger on him. When Ramjet stated the obvious -- _Just promote Shockwave’s candidate, alright?_ \-- they all looked at him like he’d suggested they shoot themselves instead. Which it felt like they’d done anyway, and Starscream didn’t need to do anything. They’d do it to themselves. 

He knew then that his philosophy had flaws, leaving him weaker than Starscream’s ambition before Megatron’s fusion cannon. The simple rules that governed Ramjet’s life skewed sideways, and no matter how the Conehead obeyed them, he still came out in the wrong. Worse, the rules of physical warfare changed as well.

Win a battle against the Autobots? The reward for success mysteriously refused to manifest, and Ramjet carried Thrust away from the repair bay still crippled. The Constructicons looked right through them and totally failed to see their injuries. Show up for patrol? Soundwave blandly informed them that all their flight slots had disappeared, and Dirge began to morosely count the days between battleplans against the Autobots on Earth just for time outside of the ship. Flyers kept underwater didn’t deal with their confinement well. They needed the open sky now denied them, but there were still battles -- oh, but for some reason (what possible reason could it be?), suddenly all of the plans to distract or attack the Autobots didn’t include the Seekers. Any of them. At all. So they were trapped under the ocean, wings twitching for open air, while Starscream allegedly caught up on a backlog of work and trained Vortex.

There was only so much of that they could take. “We don’t have to tolerate this slag,” he snarled at his wingmates, and he uneasily wondered why they only gave him tired looks in return.

They went to him, because what else could they do? They _had_ to leave the ship, _had_ to fly, but they couldn’t without leave. So four big, bad Decepticons asked permission to enter the Air Commander’s office, and they waited for that permission before risking so much as a hand on the door. They assembled ranks once inside, indignant and ready to demand answers from the red Seeker sitting casually behind his desk, but there was Skywarp. 

Thundercracker was weak enough to flinch when he saw him. They’d been wingmates for ages, after all, and…to be fair, the Coneheads winced as well. 

Their temporary, now ex-Air Commander had been unseen for days, but here he was: face gone blank and somehow meek as he sat on a spare chair in the corner and didn’t even acknowledge their entrance. Starscream looked at them with an innocent face and hating optics, and Ramjet could almost see the dare. _Ask me,_ Starscream challenged them silently, charm glittering poison-edged in his smile. _Ask me why you’re confined to the ship. Ask me why Skywarp is here. Ask me why. Just give me the chance to tear you apart, and I will **give** you a reason._

And the words fell completely apart in their mouths. 

“Hostage,” Thundercracker said later, but he sounded uncertain with that conclusion. It was too easy. Too _physical_. 

“What is he **doing** to him?” Thrust asked, and they looked at each other with matching expressions of confusion. Wondering, a little fearfully, if they could do that to someone. If they had the minds to match Starscream; if they could transmute their physical power into his ability to invent something ugly enough to not leave a mark. 

They couldn’t, however, and Ramjet’s dumb, blunt courage cracked against the brittle razor of Starscream’s wit. He could use his fists as cudgels, but Starscream didn’t need to lift a finger in order to trap all of their sparks, expose them, and _twist_. They writhed on tenterhooks, captured and knowing and loathing it, and Ramjet suffered most of all. An enemy he couldn’t confront, a battle with weapons he couldn’t seem to grasp, broke him. 

Skywarp couldn’t stay in the Air Commander’s office forever. When he emerged, he was brought to heel. The normally gregarious jet became a steady, quiet shadow at Starscream’s beck and call. He lifted his optics in the occasional pleading glance at the others before looking down again. The Coneheads and Thundercracker had yet to find a solution to Shockwave’s candidate, hovering with increasing apprehension on the verge of plan, and Starscream pointedly ignored the whole issue. He resumed commanding them as if nothing had ever happened, but his silent ultimatum stalked the four jets like a beast. 

Inescapable, it sank teeth into their throats every minute of every slippery day, clawing, clawing _tick tock tick tock_ into their wings. It curled around Skywarp lovingly, purring threat. Ramjet could barely stand the sight of the purple-and-black jet, unable to face his own growing fear written on the ex-Air Commander’s face. Thundercracker’s plans became more desperate, the sound of his engine more alarming. Needed repairs and maintenance were adding up in them all, gradually degrading their performance. Or rather, it would have if they were allowed out of the underwater base, and that was the worst of all. They could feel the sky-mad need consuming them, but they didn’t dare try to appeal to Megatron, they didn’t dare…

The other Decepticons watched them, impassive but careful like bystanders at an accident treading on shattered glass. They watched, but they didn’t help. Because Starscream had that power. Not raw power to win through strength, but power, and Ramjet felt as sick as if he’d hit sudden vertigo when he thought about it. They’d been condemned to solitary confinement as effectively as any solid door closing on a prison.

They hadn’t known how bad it really was, though. Ramjet had thought they’d sunk as low and hopeless as they could go, but no.

His wing had been watching the other Decepticons fight on a vidscreen in the base. The Combaticons had been taking on the Earth Autobots in that elaborately staged way Megatron’s overarching deception required, and Dirge had said something. Ramjet didn’t even remember what it had been. It was only significant because Ramjet had met Thrust’s optics immediately afterward for a shared moment of _Primus, he’s creepy._

_…really, he’s creepy._

_**Really** creepy._

Some thought had flickered through both their minds, a sense of how wrong that was. Not just wrong, but sickly, horribly familiar. They’d looked to Dirge. And their wingmate had been staring back at them in horrorstruck revelation. 

Poor maintenance. Earth’s filth corroding their cerebral circuitry. Confinement warping their minds.

_Starscream, no. **No.**_

They’d all been crazy before. Earth-mad, the Decepticons called it once returning to Cybertron had restored their sanity. But they hadn’t _gone_ crazy; they’d come online already insane after their 4 million years of statis-lock buried on Earth. They hadn’t felt the difference and actually recognized their insanity until they had been repaired. It was like waking up in the repairbay after a crash: terrible in retrospect, but already over. Compared to that, this was feeling the crash coming: the pain of a crippling shot and the spark-wrenching fall, watching as the ground rushed up, dreading the crash getting closer and closer and unable to stop…

Starscream redefined ‘devious.’ He also stripped away any vestige of pity from ‘merciless.’ He chained them by duty and power into a personalized, private torture chamber to slowly go mad. To _feel_ themselves slowly go mad, questioning every thought and winding themselves into hyperventilating, trembling knots. The helpless sensation of losing control overwhelmed their pride and flayed them open to whatever he wanted. Shockwave’s candidate’s head on a platter? They’d get it. Obedience on and off the battlefield? They’d do it. Oaths of personal fealty? They’d swear it. They’d fall over themselves for that kind of opportunity, because in reality they knew it wouldn’t be that simple. 

Kennelmaster and puppeteer, Air Commander and jailer; Starscream had them at his nonexistent mercy. They knew they deserved no forgiveness, and he would never forget. He held the keys to their freedom, strung up their minds and dangled them dancing from his hands, and they’d sit up and beg on command because they had no idea, not a fragging _clue_ what it was he’d take from them next. He’d defeated them without a shot fired. Prisoners had no leverage to make demands. They could only try to appease their jailor. 

Starscream sat behind his desk, leaning back with a lazy smirk, and completely disarmed Ramjet by wits alone. He couldn’t fight these tactics. He couldn’t crash through any weaknesses. Confrontation only smacked him between the optics with his own vulnerabilities, and, small and shamed, he retreated and surrendered and was utterly crushed under Starscream’s _mind_. 

Ramjet had made an enemy of an ally. He’d believed he knew everything to know about him.

He’d forgotten that Starscream knew him, too.


	5. Just Act Natural: the Wicked Witch Is Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Stunticons couldn't understand.

_Envy_

[* * * * *]

They stared at the Stunticons.

The Stunticons had been created with the kind of madness the Decepticons feared. The fact that the ground-pounder gestalt didn’t even notice it was a privatized horror to the rest of the Decepticons. They all watched the Stunticons like visitors at a zoo watching the caged monsters. Or, perhaps more accurately, they were freed prisoners on the outside looking back in at the inmates. It was kind of funny, a little sad, and it brought an itchy, wild feeling to their sparks. The Stunticons were a car crash, and they were observers.

 _That’s what we were,_ the Decepticons thought, even if they didn’t think it. _We didn’t know any better, either._

That was the crux of the matter. The Stunticons embodied the Earth-mad sickness they’d endured, but at the time, none of the Decepticons had been aware of their own madness. Only afterward, looking back, had they seen what total crazy idiots they’d become. 

Sometimes, idling in the common room between duty shifts and missions, they speculated on what the Stunticons would be like after Earth. Popular opinion among the flyers was that Motormaster would make an excellent soldier. Starscream and Soundwave had unofficially-officially agreed to transfer him over to Shockwave’s ranks to be trained up as a real Decepticon fighter. It’d take some doing, but eventually the other Stunticons might make it in the normal ranks as well.

Because, seriously, the Stunticons weren’t really Decepticon Elite material. At least, not off Earth where the other Elite Decepticons didn’t have to pretend to be incompetently insane. Unless the Decepticons’ youngest combiner team mysteriously gained a few million years’ fighting experience when their minds were sorted out, they’d be booted off the Elite as soon as the Earth mission was finished. Which meant that the Elite flyers probably wouldn’t get a chance to confirm their speculations, but what the frag. It gave them something to argue about good-naturedly between shifts.

It also led to these long, awkward pauses whenever the other Decepticons were confronted by the Stunticons’ complete lack of understanding. Reality -- on or off Cybertron, Megatron’s deception notwithstanding -- passed the Stunticons by on a daily basis. It made speculation on their base personalities an endless activity, as nobody actually knew what they were like underneath the scrambled circuitry. At the same time, it also made it impossible to explain certain fundamental basics of the universe to the poor ground-pounders.

So it wasn’t like the Coneheads could explain to the Stunticons why they stared. It was the distance between grounder-pounders and flyers multiplied by a vast amount of missing information. They stared because they saw a pathetic ignorance staring back at them with nervous unhappiness and apathy and fireworks and drunken incomprehension. Until their Earth-mad broken minds were repaired, the Stunticons had to be kept in the dark on Megatron’s master plan. 

Starscream was not dead, and they could not tell the Stunticons that fact. If they did, the insane combiner team still wouldn’t understand what that really _meant._ They couldn’t explain the politics playing quietly behind the scenes, because the Stunticons lived and fought onstage with no inkling that the other Decepticons were only acting. Offstage didn’t exist for these four mechs, yet. 

Offstage, the important things happened. The Stunticons just didn’t know that. So the Coneheads stared because they couldn’t speak.

But that question…

The three Seekers had heard what Drag Strip asked, and in his words they saw their own Hell looking back at them. And that, with all its heavy implications, could not be tolerated. They knew all too well what Starscream’s absence could mean, and ‘envy’ did not enter into their minds.

Using only two fingers, Thrust _gently_ picked Drag Strip’s hand up off his arm, swung it _slowly_ into open air, and let it go as cautiously as an armed explosive. He looked at the yellow stunt car for a moment more, optics dimly pondering unknown thoughts. He turned his head and nodded slightly to Ramjet, who shrugged back. Dirge flicked an intentionally disinterested glance over the other three Stunticons, who gaped back. Even Dead End’s notorious apathy had hitched, his expression changing enough to hint at the question openly painted across his gestaltmate’s faces: _What just happened?_

The three Coneheads chose not to answer the unvoiced question. They turned on their turbines and left they way they’d come. They weren’t hurrying, and they were not retreating. They just…left.

The Stunticons looked at each other. “Do you ever get the feeling we’re not being told something?” Breakdown asked, a little hesitant to break the silence.

Dead End blinked. Drag Strip nodded, staring at his discarded hand as he used to the other to bring the energon cube back to his lips. He felt the need for more high grade, suddenly. 

“Ding dong?” Wildride suggested uncertainly.

 _The wicked witch, the wicked witch, is dead, is dead, is dead._

_…isn’t he?_


End file.
